Which reminds me

Once we had a family dinner at Toby's, a fine Opelousas restaurant. My daughter Tammy's two little girls, Katie and Mandy, were at that ultra-cute stage, and knew that their great-grandfather was a softee.

When they spotted the lobster tank, they were fascinated, and before we knew it my dad had ordered a lobster for the girls, in addition to the dinner we had already ordered.

The look on my mom's face when that huge lobster came out and was deposited in front of the girls had everyone at the table collapsing in laughter.

Mountain Cajun

One of my favorite contributors, Jaime Bourgeois, writes to say that "after 40 years at sea and 17 years of teaching at the Texas Maritime Academy in Galveston, I have finally retired and moved to Colorado. From our house we can see Pike's Peak. It is almost as pretty as the Atchafalaya swamp."

While he wrote under the pen name "Shlomo Pielstick-Kennedy," I used his real name when, years ago, I ran the poem he put in a Christmas greeting to his brother, Dr. George Bourgeois, of Opelousas, expressing his love for his home state:

"May your hogs be fat and greasy

and your cows be full of milk.

May your days be filled with pleasure

and your bedsheets made of silk.

May your dogs have expert noses

and your cat catch many mice.

May your house be free of roaches

and your heads devoid of lice.

May your Christmas bring you closer

to the sacred love of God.

May you never be required to leave

sweet Louisiana's sod."

Faux French?

Lawrence Hecker heartily agrees with a statement by David La Breche in the Monday column:

"At last someone has pointed out that 'Geaux' in French is not pronounced 'Go,' but something like 'Joe' — albeit buried in a column with a headline about Henry Ford.

"Can't you put it smack at the top of page 1A?

"There's too much fake French going around Louisiana these days. French people visiting here must think we're ignorant."

Stop the press

Speaking of Geaux, Dale Saizan adds to the Wednesday story about bumper stickers prepared when Bo Rein was named LSU football coach, then died in a plane crash:

"Paul Duffy is correct about the 'Geaux Beaux' bumper stickers. I know because I was the pressman printing them when J.K. Land came to the press room and said to stop the press — because the plane had gone missing with the coach and pilot."